home
about the artist
gallery
blog
links
contact

Archive for May, 2012

« Older Entries

How Depressing

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

I wanted to do a piece on depression for the SAQA I’m Not Crazy juried show. I have periodic bouts of depression and other members of my immediate family have also suffered from this mental dis-ease. I started with discharged letters that read Can You Hear Me Now, repeated. I used gold deColourant and a stencil.

I then printed depression self-talk on silk organza.

I used Mistyfuse on the back of the organza and then cut out “thought bubbles.” I wonder if we could hear the self talk of victims of depression, could we intervene and help sooner?

I know when I am depressed, I have two personalities. I can put on a smiley face for people, but when I am alone, I fall into the depression self talk mode.

I digress. I fused the thought bubbles to the discharged background and zigzagged the edges.

Here is a detail.

Tonight, Mr C and I went to a harpsichord concert at the Reed College Art Gallery. The harpsichord was played for the first time. It was a work of art built by a Reed Alum who also taught physics there. Then, we went out to dinner. Now, we are watching more The Killing episodes.

The last of the green 3 x 3s. This is what I do when I am out of time and out of ideas!!

Posted in 3 x 3, Juried Shows, SAQA | 3 Comments »

Making a Deadline

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

I have been working to finish a piece for the SAQA juried show, I’m Not Crazy. It is a piece that I started a while ago. I used de Colourant to create some letters on a hand-dyed background. I wanted to stitch around each letter and found that a special clearview foot that came with my Janome 7700 was perfect for the job. I had much more control than I normally do and was able to free motion quilt around the letters.

This is a piece about depression which has plagued many in my family, including myself. The deadline is tomorrow evening, EST, but I am close to finishing!!

I have 3 more green 3 x 3s. Only one more to go.

I lost this little Aspen leaf thermofax screen, but found it today so was able to do some foiling for this piece.

Mr C gave in and hired someone to work on the landscaping. Today, a delightful young man was here most of the day and cleared out the copious weeds on the side yard where I have the garden beds that are too shady for growing much of anything. It looks so much better. He also worked on the little garden outside my studio.

I took this photo from one of the bedroom windows with the iPhone. Hope he doesn’t mind.

Posted in 3 x 3, Juried Shows, Machine Quilting | Comments Off on Making a Deadline

Wordless Wednesday

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Posted in Wordless Wednesday | Comments Off on Wordless Wednesday

An Exercise in Futility?

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

This is my Alternate Universe quilt which I created by using a freezer paper template and Softscrub to discharge. I originally used beads in gel medium in the rings, but it looked really bad. I was able to remove them and spent some time over the last month or so embellishing the rings with Perle cotton. I finished today and looked at the area opposite the rainbow ring and there seemed to be crocking from the rainbow thread. It may have gotten damp while I have been hauling around.

You can sort of see it where I put the red arrow. What to do?

I figured I had nothing to lose so I spritzed it with stain remover and threw it in the washing machine with a dye magnet and washed it.

Here is a detail shot of that area after the washing. I haven’t had a chance to steam press it, but I am very happy with the result. There is natural color change from the discharge, but the crocking is gone.

I started this quilt when things started going crazy with politics a coupe of years ago. It is not a very pretty quilt, but it was not meant to be. It was to portray my angst of waking up and hearing the news and wondering what universe I was in. With the events of today — it certainly has not gotten any better.

We had a nice meal with the Portland family yesterday. I grilled a half a salmon and made a scrumptious berry/rhubarb crisp.

Today, I had tons of SDA e-mails to generate and a meeting with Diane, one of the Artists Among Us co-chairs. We reconciled all of the financial stuff with my database so that I can now generate requests for checks for the artists.

So, no 3 x 3s today. Mr C and I are having an evening marathon of catching up with Season 2 of The Killing.

Posted in Finishing touches, My creations | 1 Comment »

Easy Being Green

Sunday, May 27th, 2012

I have spent the week-end working outside, doing laundry, shopping for staples and being a bit lazy. I am having a bad arthritis flare-up and so I am not pushing myself. The new planters came. Mr C lined them with plastic and filled them with soil. Yesterday morning we went to the Portland nursery and I bought herbs and veggie and tomato starts. I really like how these look. I put some nasturtiums in the  for some color and adding to salads. For now, I have some lettuce starts in with the herbs. When they are larger, I will not need to fill in the space.

Here is the new veggie garden sans the overgrown herbs.

It is a nice sunny spot on the side of the garage. Last night we had a mighty thunder storm and it gully washed up several of my plants. We got them back in the soil and I hope they will get some strong roots before we get a rain like that again. I have room to plant a few more things.

Here is a recent photo of Paige. She is now 2 months old!! What a special little baby she is!

Here are the recent green 3 x 3s.

This one is in honor of Pentecost Sunday. I guess tomorrow is a holiday. The family is coming over for dinner. I am going to make a rhubarb and berry crisp, but I don’t know what else.

Posted in 3 x 3, Paige Ada, The Farm | 3 Comments »

« Older Entries